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The Real Thomas Paine 

Patriot and Publicist 
A Philosopher Misunderstood 

By HENRY LEFFMANN 


This essay was read at a meeting of the HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF 
PENNSYLVANIA, April 10th, 1922. It was very favorably received, being specially 
commended by several of the officers of the Society and by many of the audience. 
It has been published in the PENNSYLVANIA MAGAZINE, being given the 
place of honor—the first article. It is an effort to do justice to a man who has been 
unfairly abused, and especially to show the baselessness of Roosevelt’s assertion (in 
his life of Gouverneur Morris) that Paine was an atheist. I trust that you will 
read the essay, as it relates to matters on which Americans have been misinformed. 


> > > 


r 




yjj\. 











THE EEAL THOMAS PAINE, PATEIOT AND PUB¬ 
LICIST. A PHILOSOPHEE MISUNDEESTOOD. 

BY HENRY LEFFMANN. 

More than two thousand years ago a Greek philoso¬ 
pher devoted himself, as was the not infrequent custom 
of that group, to framing paradoxes—or, as we now call 
them—fallacies. One of these was that there can be no 
motion. ‘ ‘ For, ^ ’ said he, ‘ ^ a body cannot move in the 
place where it is, and it cannot move in the place where 
it is not. Therefore, it cannot move at all.^’ The 
world has gone on doing this sort of thing continually, 
and today, we have the doctrine of Relativity, of which 
it is said that the essence is that you cannot tell where 
you are unless you know what time it is, and you cannot 
tell what time it is unless you know where you are. 

I must leave to mathematicians and logicians the 
task of rebutting the motion fallacy and explaining 
the doctrine of Relativity, but I refer to the paradox 
of Zeno because, while I feel that it is wrong as regards 
motion, it has some validity as applied to history. I 
doubt if history can be written fairly. Contemporaries 
cannot write it so, for they are too much under the in¬ 
fluence of personal feelings, self-interest and prejudice; 






82 


The Real Thomas Paine. 


those who come after cannot do it justly, because they 
fail to appreciate the entire environment in which the 
events unrolled. At best, we can get but an imperfect 
picture of the past, a distorted picture of the present 
and a guess at the future. 

I am going to try, however, to take you back this 
evening into the environment of the last half of the 
eighteenth century, when certain events occurred that 
had a most profound influence on the history of 
the world. After much warfare and much diplomacy, 
the British flag had been established over the Atlantic 
slope, from the Arctic snows to the borders of the Gulf 
of Mexico, a region that literally stretched from pine 
to palm. From several distinct motives this region had 
been rather extensively settled. Escape from religious 
persecution had determined many; desire to improve 
their home conditions had impelled others. Some had 
come because the others were coming, intending to es¬ 
tablish themselves in the professions and in business. 
There was an abundance of land; the woods were full 
of game and the streams of fish. The British mon- 
archs, who granted to their favorites large tracts of 
land, had interest mostly in the direct profit that might 
come from the exploitation of these areas. The Span¬ 
ish and Portuguese, who, by a geographic accident, 
had been directed strongly to the southern portion of 
the hemisphere, had found abundant supplies of the 
precious metals, and we were not astonished that when 
Charles II granted to Penn the territory of Pennsyl¬ 
vania, he reserved to himself one-fiifth of the gold and 
silver ore found in the province. He also exacted an 
annual tribute of three beaver skins. The skins 
were easily found, but the province has never yielded 
any appreciable amount of the precious metals. Time 
was to show, however, that Pennsylvania contains 
stores of raw material far more valuable than gold or 
silver, for its coal, iron ore, oil and gas have been the 


The Real Thomas Paine. 83 

foundations of the greatest fortunes that the world has 
ever seen. 

As the native population increased, and immigrants 
came who had no allegiance to the British crown, or 
had repudiated that allegiance, it was inevitable that 
the colonists should be steadily drawn away from the 
Mother Country. This tendency was all the stronger 
in consequence of the character of the population. The 
men and women who came to these shores, brave enough 
to face the risks of the sea voyage, wild Indians and 
other dangers, would have spirit enough to resist the 
conditions of absentee landlordism, for that was what 
much of the British Colonial administration was. More 
positive conditions tending to separation were at work. 
Manufacturing began to develop, and British manufac¬ 
turing interests soon became alarmed by the danger 
of competition, and steps were early taken to thwart the 
colonies. 

Parliament resolved that the establishment of indus¬ 
tries in the colonies should be discouraged at all cost. 
An interesting phase of this antagonism is shown in 
connection with molasses. The colonies, especially the 
New England ones, were actively engaged in the im¬ 
portation of molasses, which was fermented into rum, 
and sent out to the African coast for the purchase of 
slaves. Parliament passed an act limiting the importa¬ 
tion of molasses to British possessions. This gave a 
great monopoly to the British owners of the sugar 
lands, and led to extensive smuggling on the part of the 
colonists. The condition was serious, and we can 
appreciate the remark that John Adams makes in his 
reminiscences, ^Hhat we should not blush to acknowl¬ 
edge that molasses had a good deal to do with American 
independence. ’ ^ 

It is not possible to enter here upon the details of 
the movement for independence. It is well known to 
all who have studied the contemporary literature, that 


84 


The Real Thomas Paine. 


the people were much divided on the question. Some, 
like Joseph Galloway, were strongly opposed to the 
attitude of the Mother Country, but wholly unwilling 
to break away from allegiance; others were less loyal, 
but regarded actual separation as inadvisable. In the 
early 70’s, Washington expressed himself as decidedly 
opposed to independence, and Franklin, in London, said 
that he had never heard anyone in America, drunk or 
sober, express a desire for separation. Man proposes, 
but economic forces dispose, and the conflict of com¬ 
mercial interests was hurrying the colonies on to 
antagonisms that could have but one outcome. As in 
all such cases, some leader was required to formulate 
the plans around which the people could rally. In the 
latter part of 1774, an Englishman arrived in this 
city, who was destined to be the favorite and aid of the 
nation ^s greatest leaders and to have great confldences 
imposed upon him, yet by reason of some seriously mis¬ 
understood writings of his later life, to have his 
memory execrated, and his whole career grossly misrep¬ 
resented. 

Thomas Paine was bom in England in 1737. It is 
not necessary to trace his early life. He was brought 
up substantially under Quaker auspices, and learned 
a trade, but entered the revenue service of Great 
Britain. It was a service permeated throughout with 
corruption, and we need not be surprised if he fell, like 
his associates, into evil ways. He was removed, re¬ 
instated and again removed. He attracted the atten¬ 
tion of Franklin, who advised him to come to America, 
and gave him a letter of introduction. He arrived in 
Philadelphia in the latter part of 1774, and soon became 
a successful newspaper writer. He was strongly im¬ 
pressed with the idea that the colonies could not get 
satisfactory conditions, nor secure justice and free 
economic life, except by separation from the Mother 
Country, hut as just noted, even prominent Americans 


The Real Thomas Paine. 


85 


were lukewarm to this view. The bloodshed at Lexing¬ 
ton meant war, although probably no one saw this 
clearly at that time. The gathering storm of dissension 
with Great Britain found articulate expression in a 
pamphlet entitled ‘ ‘ Common Sense, ’ ’ written by Paine, 
and published anonymously, not infrequent in those 
days, in January, 1776. It is admitted now by leading 
historians that this pamphlet, of which it is said 120,000 
copies were sold, was the most important production of 
the time in drawing the American people to the inde¬ 
pendence movement. All the contemporary literature 
indicates this. I am not here, however, as a modern 
Parson Weems, to sublimate the subject of my dis¬ 
course until he loses all semblance of humanity. 
Thomas Paine was a human being, and it is as a human 
being that he must be judged. I confess, therefore, that 
to me the text of ^‘Common Sense’’ seems rather heavy. 
Very different, indeed, must have been the reactions of 
our forefathers to polemical literature than at present. 
Perhaps, there is no better example than the manner 
in which the resolution of independence was treated 
by the newspapers. On the 2nd day of July, 1776, the 
Continental Congress passed Eichard Henry Lee’s 
resolution, offered a few weeks before, declaring the 
colonies free and independent States. Surely, today, 
such an action would be displayed on the front page in 
type as large as the composing room could command. 
Yet the announcement was made in small type in an out- 
of-the-way place on one of the inside pages, without 
further comment. We cannot doubt that Common 
Sense ’ ’ aroused the greatest interest, yet I believe that 
if we can make the grotesque supposition of it having 
been published in the early months of our late war, it 
would have not secured one volunteer for the army nor 
sold a Liberty Bond. We must judge Paine in his en¬ 
vironment, and it was he who was essentially qualified 
to appeal to the lukewarm, hesitating and indifferent. 


86 


The Real Thomas Paine, 


and turn them in great numbers to the support of the 
cause. He did more, for he incorporated into the latter 
part of his essay a paragraph that lays down clearly 
the principle upon which the Declaration is based. A 
few weeks ago Mr. Carson aptly pointed out that the 
Declaration is not a document that founded a govern¬ 
ment. It merely cuts us loose from England. Many 
years of labor still remained for the great fathers of 
this country to weld these colonies into a nation, and 
Paine, by the way, was fully in sympathy’ with such a 
movement. In the closing portions of ‘‘Common 
Senseis the following paragraph: 

“Were a manifesto to be published, and dispatched 
to foreign Courts, setting forth the miseries we have 
endured, and the peaceable methods we have inef¬ 
fectually used for redress, declaring at the same time 
that, not being any longer able to live happily or safely 
under the cruel disposition of the British Court, we had 
been driven to the necessity of breaking oft all connec¬ 
tions with her; at the same time assuring all such 
Courts of our peaceable disposition towards them, such 
a memorial would produce more good effects to this 
Continent than if a ship were freighted with petitions 
to Britain.’’ 

About six months after “Common Sense” was pub¬ 
lished, Jetferson wrote the Declaration, which, after 
amendment by Congress, was adopted by the vote of 
most, hut not all, of the members thereof. A careful 
examination of that document will show that with the 
exception of certain declarations about human rights, 
the positive feature is just what Paine advised, namely, 
a protest to the world at large of the unjust treatment 
to which the colonies had been subjected, of the many 
appeals they had made for redress, of the final ex¬ 
haustion of their patience, and of their feeling that 
nothing remained but to throw otf their allegiance. A 
perusal of the introductory and final paragraphs of the 


The Real Thomas Paine, 


87 


Declaration will show the anticipations that Paine’s 
sentences embody. The bnlk of the text of the docu¬ 
ment is taken up with the twenty-seven specific charges 
against the King of Great Britain, and in accordance 
with Paine’s view, it carries no petition to the Ministry 
or Parliament. The group of resolutions otfered by 
Lee in June included that of independence, one looking 
toward a closer alliance of the colonies and one pro¬ 
viding for foreign alliances. For a long while no 
definite action was taken on either of the latter, but sug¬ 
gestions of aid from France were made in 1775, al¬ 
though it took a long while to bring about actual help. 
In 1763 the treaty of Paris had taken from France all 
her possessions on the North American area, and, 
naturally, the French cherished the hope of recovering 
these lands, as they did of recovering Alsace and Lor¬ 
raine. When the American colonies revolted the hour 
of France’s revenge struck, but, for a long while, the 
French King hesitated to take open action. In this 
period private enterprises were made. It is not neces¬ 
sary to discuss here the business in which Beaumarchais 
was engaged, but Paine had a part in some of the af¬ 
fairs, for which he has been unjustly criticised. It is 
not likely that in those days, any more than in our own, 
such extensive operations in money were conducted 
with strict honesty, and Paine deemed it his duty to 
make public certain facts with which he had become 
acquainted through his official position. He had been 
made Secretary of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, 
and, in the somewhat loose organization of the 
National Administration in those days, was practically 
the Foreign Secretary of the United States. The Silas 
Deane affair is not capable of thorough analysis at this 
day, but the only charge that can be brought against 
Paine is that he was indiscreet, and it may be said that 
discretion was not one of his strong points. In this 
affair he incurred the displeasure of Gouverneur Mor- 


88 


The Real Thomas Paine. 


ris, and years afterwards Morris was able to do Paine 
an ugly turn. France, later on, became the open ally 
of the United States and sent ships, money and men to 
our shores. In a large remittance of money Paine was 
one of those chosen to take charge, which he did safely, 
arriving at Boston in August, 1781, with a large sum, 
which was very welcome to the struggling patriots. 
For several years he was more or less intimately con¬ 
nected with the armies in the field, and by means of his 
pen had served to maintain the spirits of the soldiers. 
His work in this direction was published from time to 
time under the title of ^‘The Crisis.’^ 

The war closing with the victory of the Americans, 
the treaty of peace released the territory of the thirteen 
States and some additional areas from British al¬ 
legiance, but in that treaty the several States were 
recognized as independent sovereignties, and this view 
was dominant for many years, and, indeed, still 
operates in many respects. Paine was not at all 
friendly to this States-rights view, and Washington 
was very much opposed to it. Jetferson was the ex¬ 
ponent of the independent sovereignty idea, and we may 
be glad, I think, that fate put him in France during the 
sessions of the Federal Convention. 

During his entire American residence, Paine had 
been active in the interest of the colonies. He had en¬ 
joyed the friendship and confidence of many of the great 
men who are now enshrined in our memories. He had 
enemies and detractors, of course. No man nor woman 
who leads an active life can escape antagonism. Wash¬ 
ington is the great American hero, yet bitter denunci¬ 
ation was his portion during a great deal of his life. 
He went out of office under a storm of denunciation as 
great as any President has had to face. McMaster ex¬ 
presses a doubt whether he could have been elected to a 
third term had he been disposed to accept. Certainly, 
he would not have received unanimous support. Lin- 


The Real Thomas Paine. 


89 


coin stands out as sharing the honors with Washington, 
yet a Delaware Senator, during the War of Secession, 
in open Senate, called Lincoln an imbecile. Said Lie¬ 
big, the chemist, ‘^Show me a man who has made no 
mistakes and I will show a man who has done nothing.’^ 
It may be said, ‘‘Show us a man who has made 
no enemies and we will show you a man who had 
no active part in affairs of his country.’’ It must be 
borne in mind that our forefathers, while not showing 
the peculiar political antagonisms of today, due largely 
to the overwhelming influence of the spoils system, were 
yet very bitter in their expressions. The Federalistic 
and States-rights tendencies were in open and bitter 
war, and epithets were handed about in newspapers and 
speeches that exceed in fierceness many of our wildest 
party rancours. Jefferson condemned the Supreme 
Court on account of its Federalistic tendencies, and said 
that the Congress was a collection of stock-jobbing ras¬ 
cals. One might consume hours in setting forth the 
scurrility and even indecency with which public men 
were condemned in those days. 

After the war, Paine interested himself in several 
important matters, among others, in the design and 
construction of an iron bridge, but it is not opportune 
to consider this question here. Leaving the details of 
some of his labors, I pass to the second phase of his life, 
which has led to the unfavorable attitude of many per¬ 
sons toward him and to much misrepresentation and 
abuse. 

On July 14,1789, three months after Washington was 
inaugurated, the Bastille fell before a Paris mob. 
Many of us, at the mention of this incident, seem to see 
Defarge, of the wine-shop, standing at his gun, grown 
doubly hot in the service of four fierce hours, and we 
think of the numerous political prisoners that were re¬ 
leased from unjust imprisonment. The cold facts of 
history, however, often destroy these popular opinions, 


90 


The Real Thomas Paine. 


and, as a matter of fact, the Bastille contained at that 
time only seven prisoners, of whom four had been com¬ 
mitted for forgery, two were committed as insane, a 
custom in those days, and the seventh was a young scion 
of an aristocratic family, who was such a consummate 
scoundrel that his relatives had him committed to 
prison to save him from the scatfold. 

As in the bloodshed at Lexington, the fire lighted at 
the Bastille could not be extinguished without more 
blood, and France went on to the Eevolution and the 
Terror. Burke’s essay against the Eevolution aroused 
Paine’s ire, and he replied to it in an essay, entitled, 
‘ ^ The Eights of Man. ’ ’ He incurred the enmity of the 
British authorities, was indicted, but escaped to France 
in 1792, where he was elected a member of the National 
Assembly. His position was remarkable, for he could 
not understand the language. He showed considerable 
courage in'his attitude ; among other matters, he voted 
against the execution of the King, advising that he 
should be held in banishment as a hostage, and declar¬ 
ing that his execution would alienate American sym¬ 
pathy. He was probably right on this point, but con¬ 
ditions had so far advanced toward the Terror that he 
secured only enmity and suspicion. During this period 
attacks on the church by French leaders became more 
and more severe. Finally, there was a complete official 
overthrow of the established religion, which was pro¬ 
scribed. Not unnaturally, there was a reaction, and 
those prominent in the new order set up ceremonies in¬ 
tended to mock the former faiths. Thus, the Commune 
of Notre Dame fitted up the church as a Temple of 
Eeason, had a personation of the Goddess of Eeason, 
and carried out absurd and offensive ceremonies. The 
great leader of the Eevolution, Eohespierre, was op¬ 
posed to such proceedings. He was a deist, not an 
atheist. Employing his power to control the nation, 
he instituted, although amid much opposition, the 


The Real Thomas Paine. 91 

worship of the ‘‘Supreme Being’^ with himself as 
pontiff. 

Such conditions could only result in a complete break¬ 
down of religious faith, and Thomas Paine attempted 
to stay the movement by a treatise which he called the 
“Age of Reason.” It was a strictly deistical work, 
and was, in fact, one of the many evidences of the 
change that had come over the minds of many thinking 
men in Europe. The schism that divided the church 
in the 16th century, substituted, as far as most of the 
Nordic race was concerned, an authoritative book for an 
authoritative church. Through the latter half of the 
eighteenth century the conflict of certain scientific and 
critical developments with the letter of the Scriptures 
became very active. A large number of thinking men 
felt that some re-interpretation was needed. It is not 
possible, in the space and time here available, to do 
more than indicate some of the salient features. The 
storm broke from several directions. In 1753, Astruc, 
a French physician, published, in Paris, a book entitled, 
“Consideration of the MSS. used by Moses in the 
Preparation of Genesis.” It is the foundation of the 
modern system of criticism of the Pentateuch, known as 
“Astruc’s key,” since he was the first to point out the 
distinction between the Elohistic and Jahvistic texts. 
In 1776 appeared the volume of Gibbon’s history con¬ 
taining the terrible 15th and 16th chapters, in which 
the accepted views in regard to early Christian history 
were challenged. In 1782, Joseph Priestley published 
his “Tlistory of the Corruptions of Christianity,” 
which was important as a foundation of the historical 
method of criticism now much in vogue. In this period, 
also, appeared the works of Buffon and Hutton, on 
Geology, which could not fail to challenge the chro¬ 
nology of the Bible. 

The result of these and many similar publications 
was that a large number of learned and sincere men 

r 


92 


The Real Thomas Paine, 


turned against creeds and literal interpretations of 
Scripture, and sought a basis for ethical and moral 
stability, by what seemed a simpler method, a belief in 
a Deity who is revealed in nature, merciful, omnipotent, 
the creator and ruler of the universe. They sought to 
find evidence of such a Power in the manifestations of 
nature, and found them abundantly to their own satis¬ 
faction. In this way they became ‘^deists,’’ and so far 
from being ‘^atheists,’’ they scorned the ascription, and 
found no words too severe to condemn those who could 
not see the evidence of G-od in nature. They labored 
industriously to establish their thesis, and many of 
them became convinced that only by sacrificing the be¬ 
lief in a written revelation could a true faith be secured; 
that is, they sacrificed theology to save religion; re¬ 
ligion being to them a system of morals. It was in this 
spirit that Priestley wrote his essay; it was in this spirit 
that Jefferson made up the expurgated copy of the 
Gospels, known as the ^‘Jefferson Bible,and it was in 
the same spirit that Paine wrote his famous work, which 
earned him so much admiration from humble readers 
and so much condemnation from many eminent ones. 
The aim of Astruc, Priestley, Jefferson, Paine and 
many others of less fame was to substitute an age of 
reason for an age of faith. Paine’s task was, however, 
specific. Fate had placed him in a nation in which the 
whole social fabric was breaking down. Church, Gov¬ 
ernment, courts of law, had all been essentially wrecked, 
and extravagant tendencies developed. The ^‘Age of 
Eeason, ’ ’ which he wished to inaugurate, had no resem¬ 
blance to the disgusting ceremonies in which the God¬ 
dess of Eeason had figured, nor did he approve of 
Eobespierre’s cult of the Supreme Being. Paine’s 
theology is that which is embodied in the Declaration of 
Independence. It rested on the 'Daws of nature and of 
nature’s God,” a phrase that we have every reason to 
believe was Jefferson’s own. 


The Real Thomas Paine, 


93 


It was in the latter part of 1793 that Paine began his 
work, which shows a most careful study of the text of 
the Bible, and which applies in the main the methods of 
treatment now usual among critics, except that there 
are a good many expressions that are sarcastic and 
offensive to devout believers. This is a blemish, but 
we must allow something for the spirit of the times and 
for the audience to which the appeal was made. The 
crucial point is the charge of atheism, which has been so 
often brought against the author. It is true that 
such a charge is not heard today to any extent, but two 
distinguished Americans have made it in recent years, 
Albert Bushnell Hart and Theodore Koosevelt. I did 
not attempt to argue the question with the latter, but I 
wrote to Dr. Hart, asking what evidence he had for the 
statement. He replied that he was wrong, and that to¬ 
day Paine would be considered a conservative Uni¬ 
tarian. Let me quote as evidence of Paine’s views on 
the subject. He makes a profession of faith in the 
opening chapter, as follows: 

‘ ‘ I believe in one God and no more; and I hope for 
happiness beyond this life. 

‘ ‘ I believe in the equality of men, and I believe that 
that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving 
mercy and endeavoring to make our fellow creatures 
happy. ’ ’ 

He then proceeds to express his disbelief in the sev¬ 
eral established religious cults, and to denounce them 
as making for the enslavement of the human mind. His 
definition of religious duties agrees very closely with 
that of the Prophet Micah; ‘^Do justly, love mercy and 
walk humbly with thy God. ’ ’ 

In chapter 9 he specifies the basis of his faith: 

^Ht is only in Creation that all our ideas and concep¬ 
tions of a word of God can unite. The Creation 
speaketh an universal language, independently of 
human speech or human language, multiplied and vari- 


94 


The Real Thomas Paine. 


ous as they may be. It is an ever-existing original, 
which every man can read. It cannot be forged; it 
cannot be counterfeited; it cannot be lost; it cannot be 
altered; it cannot be suppressed. It does not depend 
upon the will of man whether it shall be published or 
not; it publishes itself from one end of the earth to the 
other. It preaches to all nations and to all worlds; and 
this word of God reveals to man all that is necessary to 
know of God. 

^ ‘ Do we want to contemplate His power ? We see it in 
the immensity of the creation. Do we want to contem¬ 
plate His wisdom? We see it in the unchangeable order 
by which the incomprehensible Whole is governed. Do 
we want to contemplate His munificence? We see it in 
the abundance with which He fills the earth. Do we 
want to contemplate His mercy? We see it in His not 
withholding that abundance even from the unthankful. 
In fine, do we want to know what God is? Search not 
the book called the Scriptures that, any human hand 
might make, but the Scripture called the Creation. ’ ’ 

There is no doubt as to the classification of these 
phrases. They are not atheistical, but they are charac¬ 
teristic, intolerant utterances of deism. With the same 
positiveness that the churches of his day insisted upon 
the plenary inspiration of the Bible and its perfect 
adaptation as a guide to faith, he insists on the plenary 
inspiration of the creation and its adaptation as a guide 
for moral and ethical principles. The lines I have 
quoted are potentially as intolerant as any to be found 
in the sermons of the most uncompromising ecclesi¬ 
astics. These utterances of Paine cancel all claims to 
his being a liberal in religion, and show him to be a 
bigot, as I have, in my personal experience, found all 
deists of his type to be, for, had anyone challenged his 
argument and declared it impossible to interpret nature 
so, such a skeptic would have been denounced. In this 
matter, Paine simply stands on a level with other human 


The Real Thomas Paine. 


95 


beings, neither higher nor lower. Each of us determines 
individually the standards of morals and ethics and the 
extent to which we should be allowed to follow our 
inclinations. Society in its composite relation inter¬ 
feres and sets meets and bounds to such tendencies. 

Paine broke abruptly, and even brutally, with the 
generally accepted views. After a long and active life, 
in which his allusions to dogmatic Christianity had been 
practically merely glittering generalities, he threw upon 
the English-speaking world, then generally accepting 
the Bible as the inspired word of God, without exception 
of any text, a book in which the sacred document was 
held up to scorn. Within the ranks of scholars much of 
what he said had been often said and long known, but 
Paine’s book appealed to the masses, and undoubtedly 
led many away from the faith of their fathers. He 
may, indeed, be described in the language in which 
Byron describes Gibbon: 

“Sapping a solemn creed with solemn sneer. 

Which waked his foes to wrath that grew from fear; 

And doomed him to the zealot’s ready Hell, 

Which answers to all doubts so eloquently well.” 

It can be shown that in Paine’s day and at the present 
day the works of leading scientists and theologians con¬ 
tain many statements antagonistic to the literal inter¬ 
pretation of the Bible, but Paine’s book had a feature 
that made it much more effective in arousing both ap¬ 
proval and condemnation. He was for the time a very 
brilliant writer. As Dr. Robert Ellis Thompson said 
to me a few days ago, Paine was the first of the brilliant 
newspaper writers of the country. He was the fore¬ 
runner of such men as Ed. Howe and H. L. Mencken. 
His writings, from Common Sense,” through ‘‘The 
“Crisis,” the “Rights of Man,” to the “Age of Rea¬ 
son,” were popular writings, while Priestley’s essay 



96 


The Beal Thomas Paine. 


never got far beyond the scholar’s circle, and Jeffer¬ 
son’s Bible was not published until a few years ago, 
and then only in limited edition. We may, I think, com¬ 
pare the ‘‘Age of Eeason” in its relation to the people 
to “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” The character of Negro 
slavery was well known to all who investigated it, but 
Mrs. Stowe’s novel reached the masses. The abuses 
of the British labor system, poor laws and law courts 
are well set forth in blue-books, but nobody reads these 
but the author, compositor and proof-reader, but 
“Hard Times,” “Oliver Twist” and “Bleak House” 
have been read by millions. The writers of songs have 
had more influence on humanity than the writers on 
philosophy and science. Thomas Wharton, who wrote 
“Lillibullero,” claimed that he had sung a King out of 
three kingdoms, referring to James II. The man was 
wise who said, ‘ ‘ Give me to write the ballads of a coun¬ 
try and I care not who makes its laws. ’ ’ Many of us re¬ 
member the inspiriting effect of the songs during the 
War of Secession. 

In all his work, Paine was actuated by an intense 
human sympathy. This motive, indeed, was a domi¬ 
nant one in the founders of our nation. Most of them, 
for example, were opposed to slavery and would have 
abolished it, but for the strenuous objection of a few 
Southern colonies. Paine was one of the first to raise 
his voice against slavery, and to publish a powerful 
denunciation of it. Jefferson, who shared with Paine 
a deep desire for human happiness, but whose method 
of securing this was somewhat different, was also 
strongly opposed to slavery, and included in his draft 
of the Declaration a scathing denunciation of it and of 
the British King for his persistent encouragement of 
the traffic, but this was stricken out. It is far from im¬ 
possible that Paine’s statement suggested the phrase¬ 
ology that Jefferson used. 


The Real Thomas Paine, 


97 


I have referred to Jefferson’s Bible. He made it by 
clipping from printed editions of the Gospels such texts 
as be considered rational and valuable. He was em 
tirely confident that be was right in his selection, for be 
writes to a friend that ‘‘a more beautiful or precious 
morsel of ethics I have never seen; it is a document in ^ 
proof that I am a real Christian, that is to say, a dis¬ 
ciple of the doctrines of Jesus.” His claim is un¬ 
founded. 

All men who try to dismiss dogma and creeds from 
the midst of society and base their religion upon an in¬ 
terpretation of nature will fail, for ‘ ^ religion is a social 
phenomenon. It is the expression of those things most 
treasured by the society which professes or practices 
them. These are ‘‘sacred things.” From the primi¬ 
tive taboo, with its power of avenging sacrilege by 
supernatural terrors, to priestly and legal codes inflict¬ 
ing penalties, the mysteries of religion have been safe¬ 
guarded from profanation. Persecution, viewed from 
the standpoint of the dominant group of society, is the 
preservation of the ancient belief from attack. It is 
part of the august process of maintaining the moral 
order.” Canfield, Early Persecutions of the Christians. 

As far as regards the charge of irreligion, which has 
led to unjust charges of immorality and drunkenness, 
Paine did not pass beyond the limits which modern 
ecclesiastics are going and who yet retain their posi¬ 
tions in the church. Had Paine said that the Deluge 
was a failure, he would have been charged with 
blasphemy, yet that is what the Rev. Elwood Worcester 
says in his book “Genesis in the Light of Modern 
ICnowledge,” published while he was rector of St. 
Stephen’s Church. If Paine had some of the things 
that the late Dr. Trumbull says in his two books, ‘ ‘ The 
Threshold Covenant” and “The Blood Covenant,” he 
would have been condemned, but Dr. Trumbull’s books 
are not read by the masses; in fact, he put much of the 

VoL. XLVI.—7 


98 


The Real Thomas Paine, 


text in Latin so that it cannot be read except by schol¬ 
ars. One more instance will be sufficient. Paine may 
have been willing to express the following opinions: 

‘ ^ The Bible has many contradictions and inaccuracies 
and does not claim to be inerrant. It does not need in¬ 
spiration of God, if it is true, and inspiration would not 
avail for its contradictions and inaccuracies. If God, 
the Father, freely forgives sinners, no atonement is 
necessary. If there is an atonement, God does not 
freely forgive.’^ But these sentences are from a com¬ 
paratively recent work by William Newton Clarke, 
which is used as a text-book in the ‘ ‘ Ministers ’ Course 
in the Methodist Church.’^ 

Let me, then, bring this discussion to a close. Paine, 
I think I have shown, was a patriot. Few men did more 
than he to secure independence and to promote that 
most important purpose, the federalization of the 
States. He stands with Washington, Jetferson and 
Franklin in the first aspect; with Hamilton, James Wil¬ 
son and Madison in the second. He served in the army; 
he served in civil life; he labored for the good of hu¬ 
manity. His career in France was characterized by the 
highest devotion to the welfare of the French people. 
In opposing the execution of the King, he showed great 
courage and probably good judgment. In publishing 
^‘The Age of Peason’’ he had the highest motive, and, 
if the result was not what he expected, the same may be 
said of many publications of similar nature. 

I have shown by a few quotations that distinguished 
leaders of the church have uttered equally drastic and 
destructive criticism of the Bible, and yet retained 
their positions, and I could fill many pages with similar 
sentences. 

Thomas Paine has been much misunderstood, and has 
been cruelly abused by many persons, but he was a 
friend of humanity and a friend of political freedom. 


The Real Thomas Paine. 99 

and he deserves to be remembered with approval by all 
Americans. 

‘‘States are not great, except as men may make them; 

Men are not great unless they do and dare. 

All merit comes from facing the unequal; 

All glory comes from daring to begin; 

And there is one, whose faith, whose fight, whose service, 

Fame shall proclaim upon the walls of time. 

He dared begin, despite the unavailing; 

He dared begin, when failure was a crime.” 








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